Originally Posted by
Mark Rippetoe
Satch is not stupid, he's not a science-denier, and you know this. People apply critical thinking at the level of their particular familiarity with the subject. You're a medical lab guy, and your level of familiarity exceeds that of me and Satch. Without the knowing the specifics of viral lifecycles (a failing he and I share with Dr. Fauci), we would have no way of knowing that viruses die almost immediately outside the host cell, and that is the reason that masks make absolutely no sense, and never have. It also explains Grantham's comment. But to the even-intelligent lay person, a filtration engineer, for example, it seems quite reasonable that if a thing entering your body through an airway can make you sick, if you interrupt the entrance to the airway you can avoid the sickness caused by the pathogen. The fact that all that other shit is normal flora is irrelevant, and was only on the list for scare-effect.
The thing that bothers me the most in every discussion of this kind of mask minutia is Who Gives A Fuck? The disease caused by the virus doesn't kill anybody that's not already dying anyway. It's not in any sense a pandemic, it is easily and cheaply treated very effectively by ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, and it's not a public health concern. IT IS A POLITICAL TOOL, and that's all it's ever been.